Mavs Playbook: Cross Punch Elevator
A familiar concept to get Klay Thompson a look on the move
Watching the Mavericks pull off a great play out of a timeout is always a fun—especially when it happens in an otherwise demoralizing defeat and involves Klay Thompson being chased around screens to sink a three on the move.
Welcome back to the Mavs Playbook series, where we’re breaking down the X's and O's to dig deeper into Mavericks’ games. This is the second article in the series, adding another layer to the Analytics Guides, Game Coverage, and Player Profiles that will hopefully bring digginbasketball readers a richer and more rounded understanding about Mavericks basketball.
For these play breakdowns, I’m collaborating with my X's and O's mentor, Luka Bassin. Luka is a former player, scout, and assistant for the Slovenian national team with an extensive background in player development and play analysis. His expertise and database (available on his Coachtube account) of thousands of plays help bring insights into the strategic side of the game.
Cross Punch Elevator - a play for Klay Thompson
The first play we covered in this series was Delay Chicago (5-OUT Offense). Today, we’re diving into a classic setup designed to create an open look for a sharpshooter like Thompson.
Why a classic? Elevator sets are used at every level of basketball worldwide. Even more, Thompson is highly familiar with this concept—the Warriors have been running these sets for Thompson and Steph Curry since his rookie season during the Mark Jackson era, and they’ve been used by his successor, Steve Kerr, as well.
The Mavericks ran their version of the Elevator set in a recent game against the Indiana Pacers, when they needed a bucket out of a timeout in the fourth quarter:
The Mavericks haven’t frequently used Elevator sets in the past—though I did find a couple of instances in my game notes where they ran them for Tim Hardaway Jr.
However, punch (or post-up) actions for Luka Dončić are a staple in the Mavericks’ playbook. These plays aim either to create scoring opportunities for Dončić against smaller defenders on the block or to use him as a decoy, drawing defensive attention and creating chances for his teammates (for those who want to dive deeper into punch actions, here’s Luka’s extensive resource on different plays designed to generate offense from the block).
What intrigued me about this play was the concept of using Dončić and Irving as decoys to draw attention. When defenses are a second too slow or late, Thompson’s off-ball movement exploits the gap, generating open looks for him. If you rewatch the play carefully, you’ll notice Pascal Siakam focused on Dončić in the post, missing the start of the Elevator action, while T.J. McConnell is face-guarding Irving behind the three-point line, not paying attention to Thompson's movement and leaving himself out of position to help.
Generating early shots for Thompson has been a topic of conversation around the sometimes stagnant Mavericks offense lately. Hopefully, we’ll see more concepts like this, involving all three stars, in the future.
Old dog trying to learn new tricks here...
Why would Klay continue to move around to the strong side when it looks like a very clean look from the top of the 3pt line and IND appears to have a little more pressure on the actual shot taken?
Just trying to understand the nuances.